Kali Audio IN-5 for living room

[Emiyanez]

Hi there!

I am really tempted to get a pair of Kali Audio IN-5 to go fully active and replace my Hypex Amp and ELAC UF52 speakers (may save some money and space). I use a WiiM Ultra as main source and I have an SVS SB-1000, so I can complement the Kali speakers and improve the bass performance.

Everyone stresses out the fact that these are studio monitors and, hence, not good for far/casual listening. However, if I check the measurements of the speakers (frequency response, dispersion and maximum volume levels), they are comparable (if not better...) to what most of us are using in our living room. Am I missing something? Which other specifications are desirable for far casual living room listening (apart from aesthetics)?

Thanks for your input!

 

[Rednaxela]

This guy doesn’t mind having them on regular stands in a non-nearfield non-studio setting.

 

[Ktacos]

While they'll play fine in most settings, even a living room, they are going to render sound in a room quite a bit differently than a tower speaker with considerably more cone surface area. The lower mids are likely going to perform better on the elac and have lower distortion.

 

[Koeitje]

While they'll play fine in most settings, even a living room, they are going to render sound in a room quite a bit differently than a tower speaker with considerably more cone surface area. The lower mids are likely going to perform better on the elac and have lower distortion.

Just want to add that this has nothing to with them being monitor loudspeakers: all smaller loudspeakers suffer from this.

 

[bachatero]

Everyone stresses out the fact that these are studio monitors and, hence, not good for far/casual listening.

This is complete FUD and there's no good reason why you can't use the Kalis this way. Consider that tower speakers generally don't have woofers much bigger than studio monitors (ex: Kali LP-6v2 has a 6.5", towers might have 8"), and their directivity tells the same story. As long as you get it to the right height, you should be fine. However, consider that tower speakers generally have better bass handling than studio monitors, so if you want good bass, consider adding a subwoofer.

 

[Jmudrick]

All depends on how loud you listen and how far away you sit. I had LP-6 in my living room and they were just fine.

 

[Ktacos]

All depends on how loud you listen and how far away you sit. I had LP-6 in my living room and they were just fine.

Same experience here.

 

[utahj]

I have a pair of IN-5s. As others have stated, their suitability for living room listening will depend on the size of your living room, how far you will be sitting away from the speakers, and how loud you want your music to go. The IN-5s have a built-in limiter, so if you push them too hard, the limiter will kick in and you're not going to get any louder. Erin (from Erin's Audio Corner) discusses the limiter in the review he posted on ASR. His take is the IN-5s are not suitable for high-volume, far-field listening, but there's some discussion in the comments about "midfield" listening scenarios -- so, again, it depends how far away you'll listen and how loud you'll want to go. Since you're using a sub, that should get you a little more head room. FWIW, mine are on stands next to a desk. I use them almost exclusively for nearfield listening, but I have a couch behind the desk -- about two meters away from the speakers -- and from that distance the speakers go plenty loud (to me) and they sound great. (I don't listen that loud.)

 

[Bruce Morgen]

I have a pair of IN-5s. As others have stated, their suitability for living room listening will depend on the size of your living room, how far you will be sitting away from the speakers, and how loud you want your music to go. The IN-5s have a built-in limiter, so if you push them too hard, the limiter will kick in and you're not going to get any louder. Erin (from Erin's Audio Corner) discusses the limiter in the review he posted on ASR. His take is the IN-5s are not suitable for high-volume, far-field listening, but there's some discussion in the comments about "midfield" listening scenarios -- so, again, it depends how far away you'll listen and how loud you'll want to go. Since you're using a sub, that should get you a little more head room. FWIW, mine are on stands next to a desk. I use them almost exclusively for nearfield listening, but I have a couch behind the desk -- about two meters away from the speakers -- and from that distance the speakers go plenty loud (to me) and they sound great. (I don't listen that loud.)

I use my IN-8s+IN-5(center)+sub in almost exactly that way -- I just roll my chair back and recline to watch movies and shows on my wall-mounted TV up near the ceiling, with the IN-5 positioned just above my monitor and below the TV. The setup works equally well in either listening position and AFAICT I've never come close to engaging the Kali limiter.

 

[utahj]

I use my IN-8s+IN-5(center)+sub in almost exactly that way -- I just roll my chair back and recline to watch movies and shows on my wall-mounted TV up near the ceiling, with the IN-5 positioned just above my monitor and below the TV. The setup works equally well in either listening position and AFAICT I've never come close to engaging the Kali limiter.

I'll add that before the IN-5s, I had a pair of LP-6s (V1) in the same setup. Sometimes my kids and their friends would watch movies on the computer monitor from the couch -- we're talking about four to six small children (who talk throughout the movie and bounce around) while four to six adults are in the adjoining living room, talking and moving around as well. Against this kind of environmental noise, the LP-6s struggled to hit theatrical volume (I haven't tried it with the IN-5s). ...But this just brings us back to use case. If you want to listen to music in a smallish living room by yourself at non-deafening levels, the IN-5s may be a great choice. A pair of similarly well-behaved passive speakers won't give you better "sound quality," but they'll give you the option to drive them with massive amplification in case you want to host a rave.

 

[Haskil]

Hi there!

I am really tempted to get a pair of Kali Audio IN-5 to go fully active and replace my Hypex Amp and ELAC UF52 speakers (may save some money and space). I use a WiiM Ultra as main source and I have an SVS SB-1000, so I can complement the Kali speakers and improve the bass performance.

Everyone stresses out the fact that these are studio monitors and, hence, not good for far/casual listening. However, if I check the measurements of the speakers (frequency response, dispersion and maximum volume levels), they are comparable (if not better...) to what most of us are using in our living room. Am I missing something? Which other specifications are desirable for far casual living room listening (apart from aesthetics)?

Thanks for your input!

I use IN8 V2s in my office and I listen to them at about 2 meters and at relatively high level... And I really don't see the difference between them and any high fidelity library not intended for monitoring... except that the Kali are designed in a serious way. I have little BW CM1 on each side of my television: they are much less good but they fill the TV room with sound...
For example, I don't see any difference between Kali with a pair of nice little amplified Kef libraries...
But I would take INV 8 rather than INV 6...

 

[AnalogSteph]

Yeah. IN-8 v2s are not a ton more expensive than IN-5s and have the oomph you'd want at living room distances. 8" is not a bad rule of thumb in general.

 

[Bruce Morgen]

Yeah. IN-8 v2s are not a ton more expensive than IN-5s and have the oomph you'd want at living room distances. 8" is not a bad rule of thumb in general.

Yeah, the price difference is so small that the IN-8s are a slam dunk decision if you have enough room for them. I have mine on Gator desktop stands anyway, so there so there was no downside to going with the bigger woofer option.

 

[Ktacos]

One could also be brave and buy the IN-8 without amps from kali, just $150 each on their parts store, make a back and run your own filters. I definitely don't recommend this but it's kinda neat to see they even sell that.

 

[scott_arm]

I'm in the same boat as the original poster. Looking at using these for stereo mains in my living room. I have an apartment, so I've been looking more in the "bookshelf" size to not annoy my neighbours. These seem to fit the sound profile I'm looking for. Pretty flat, fairly low frequency extension for a bookshelf type cabinet. My main issue is most of the details I find about the Kali Audio monitors don't really talk about the RCA inputs. Switching my whole setup over to XLR starts adding up the costs.

I have a receiver with a pre-amp output, so I could keep that to switch sources and adjust volume. The only sources I use are a phono pre-amp and an appletv. So I need one regular RCA input and one optical input or hdmi arc input. My receiver is pretty cheap and old, so it doesn't have a lot of power. I think it's 50W (assuming rms) per channel at 8 Ohm. Thought it would be nice to get powered monitors so I don't have to replace the receiver, but if the RCA inputs on the Kali Audio stuff are prone to problems, have worse quality or are a lot quieter for some reason, maybe this wouldn't work out.

 

[Bruce Morgen]

I'm in the same boat as the original poster. Looking at using these for stereo mains in my living room. I have an apartment, so I've been looking more in the "bookshelf" size to not annoy my neighbours. These seem to fit the sound profile I'm looking for. Pretty flat, fairly low frequency extension for a bookshelf type cabinet. My main issue is most of the details I find about the Kali Audio monitors don't really talk about the RCA inputs. Switching my whole setup over to XLR starts adding up the costs.

I have a receiver with a pre-amp output, so I could keep that to switch sources and adjust volume. The only sources I use are a phono pre-amp and an appletv. So I need one regular RCA input and one optical input or hdmi arc input. My receiver is pretty cheap and old, so it doesn't have a lot of power. I think it's 50W (assuming rms) per channel at 8 Ohm. Thought it would be nice to get powered monitors so I don't have to replace the receiver, but if the RCA inputs on the Kali Audio stuff are prone to problems, have worse quality or are a lot quieter for some reason, maybe this wouldn't work out.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I own an IN-5 along with two "2nd Wave" IN-8s. They're all connected to a vintage Yamaha processor stack (DSP-1 and DSR-100 Pro) via RCA cables, and I've had zero issues with insufficient volume or excessive noise. Designer Charles Sprinkle has said that the RCA inputs do measure just a smidgen noisier than the XLRs, but honestly I don't hear any noise to speak of, even in between tracks at the highest volume my ears can handle.

 

[AudioJester]

My IN-5s are fine on my desktop, but wont cut it beyond 2m. I get away with Genelec 8040 in the bedroom

 

[Bruce Morgen]

IN-5s are fine on my desktop, but wont cut it beyond 2m.

Yeah, that's where the IN-8s are a better choice -- they're fine at 3 meters, and my one IN-5 is more than adequate at that distance for movies and TV in the center channel role.